- Title: PAKISTAN: Security tight in Karachi after bomb attack kills eight
- Date: 15th January 2008
- Summary: (SOUNDBITE) (Urdu) GHAZANFAR, A RESIDENT OF KARACHI, SAYING: "There is no significance in these common people being killed when even Benazir Bhutto could not be saved. A cleric from the Sunni Tehreek (party) was also killed. This will continue and no peace will prevail till the rule is transferred to representatives of the people."
- Embargoed: 30th January 2008 12:00
- Keywords:
- Location: Pakistan
- City:
- Country: Pakistan
- Topics: Crime / Law Enforcement,Domestic Politics
- Reuters ID: LVAE5U2F4TO71DDZBABCPA9JY1CR
- Aspect Ratio:
- Story Text: Security is tight in Pakistani city of Karachi after eight people were killed in a bomb attack.
Security was tight at the blast scene and elsewhere in Pakistan's biggest city Karachi on Tuesday (January 15), a day after a roadside bomb killed at least eight people.
The attack was the latest in a wave of violence in the South Asian country.
The blast occurred in a low-income neighbourhood close to one of the city's main industrial areas.
Police chief of Sindh province, Azhar Ali Farooqi, said that reports so far have confirmed the death of eight people and around 40 wounded. Karachi is the capital city of Sindh province.
Farooqi said the bomb was planted in a motorcycle and was not a suicide attack.
Paramilitary Rangers were later deployed in the area.
Violence has killed hundreds of people in Pakistan in recent months, including opposition leader Benazir Bhutto, assassinated in a gun-and-bomb attack in the city of Rawalpindi on December 27.
Newspapers carried pictures and headlines about the most recent blast.
"There is no significance in these common people being killed when even Benazir Bhutto could not be saved. A cleric from the Sunni Tehreek (party) was also killed. This will continue and no peace will prevail till the rule is transferred to representatives of the people," said Ghazanfar, a resident of Karachi.
Last week, 16 policemen and three civilians were killed in a suicide attack in the eastern city of Lahore.
No one has claimed responsibility for the attacks but the government has blamed al Qaeda-linked militants based in the lawless tribal region on the Afghan border.
"These terrorist attacks, I would only say, are by-products of the Afghan war. The future generation is paying the penalty," said Noor Syed, marketing manager with a multi-national company.
President Pervez Musharraf, who is visiting Karachi, told a gathering earlier that militancy posed a big threat to the country and his government was resolved to weed it out.
The violence has compounded fears of insecurity weeks before a February 18 election that could weaken Musharraf's grip on power as his allies are expected to fare poorly.
The election is meant to complete a transition to civilian rule in the nuclear-armed U.S. ally. The vote was to take place on January 8 but was postponed after Bhutto's killing.
Pakistan has increased security before an annual mourning period for minority Shi'ite Muslims that has been marred by sectarian attacks in recent years.
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